Synonym: Austrocylindropuntia miquelii; Cylindropuntia miquelii; Maihueniopsis miquelii; Opuntia miquelii.
Spanish: Tunilla, Tuna de Miguel.
Genus: 1 species.
Region: Chilean coast from the Elqui Valley north to Copiapo.
Habitat: 0 to 1,500 metres above sea level; wide array of soils.
BotanyAn uncommon many-branched, upright, bushy, opuntioid cactus; elongated cylindric bluish joints; forming large thickets 1-1.5 m high and 2 to 5 meters wide.
Stems: cylindrical, much branched; up to 1 to 2 meters hig; numerous lateral branches; old branches bluish, with low tubercles sometimes 2 cm long; young joints bright green, with high tubercles flattened laterally; areoles up to 60 in each joint, circular, when young filled with white wool, in age somewhat elevated.
Leaves: minute, 2 to 3 mm long, early deciduous.
Spines: tardily developing on the areoles, but formidable on old branches, needle-like, very unequal, in clusters of 8-16 or more, the longest ones nearly 10 cm long, yellowish to dark brown, whitish or greysh in age.
Glochids: numerous, brownish, caducous, 4-8 millimeters long and usually found in the upper part of the areoles.
Flowers: large; white to pink, borne near the stem tips, not opening fully, rather variable in length, up to 8 cm long including the ovary; tepals broad, apiculate, 2 to 2.5 cm. long; filaments rose-colored; pericarpel strongly tuberculate with areoles filled with numerous brown bristly glochids and subtended by minute leaves. Style white; stigma-lobes green.
Flower: blooming at adult stage often after decades, it is said of plants that have not done any flowers for the first 50 years.
Fruits: pale green to whitish, spherical to elongated and covered with bristly spines.
Seeds: variable-shaped, yellowish white to ocher and 3.5 to 5 millimeters long.